Dirty, Pretty Things: Scenes from a Mirror
by onus.probandi
Summary: Detective Constable Louise Gardiner  S3E4  was an intriguing character with so many question marks; this vignette explores her personal horror.


'Detective Constable'. The words alone made her laugh bitterly at the mockery she'd made of the title. She had only been in CID three months before this. She wasn't equipped to handle what DCI Wilson made her do. A petite, attractive woman with a very admirable figure, she exuded sophistication-her icy, piercing blue eyes rimmed with kohl, her enviable, impeccable attire, her fine bone structure and cheekbones-all this had made her the object of many of her colleagues' fantasies more often than she knew.

She was damaged beyond repair. Once full of promise and career aspiration, all that had slipped out of her reach and into the ether long ago. She was a shell for someone to fill, a marionette for someone to operate. She'd become numb, a robot, a laughingly pathetic excuse for an officer. Worse yet, she craved the approval, the caring feelings of the very people who hurt her. Her body may have been violated, but her mind had been stripped, torn asunder until she became someone whose only answer was 'yes', and day after day, she ingratiated herself further to the criminals she was supposed to loathe.

Of course, not that anyone back at Hanfield cared where she was. Wilson was too busy collecting kickbacks from the Staffords, too busy losing files, too busy leaving out names and pertinent places to notice that he'd thrown a green copper under the lorry.

She was isolated; TRAPPED. She had nowhere to go, no one coming to take her out of the hell she'd been living in for six months. She had to become who they wanted her to be-she had to be a blank slate, impressionable, pliable, acquiescent. And inside, all she could hear were the hollow screams of the woman she'd been-screams that would wake her up at night in a cold sweat, re-living the sickness of cowering before Daniel Stafford as he beat her, split her lip, bruised her pelvis, raped her, sodomized her, rendering her nearly inhuman. She was worthless. Worthless as a copper, worthless as a daughter, worthless as a friend, worthless as a lover. _She deserved this._

The blade from Terry's razor laid on the tile of the bathroom sink, gleaming in the morning light. She hated her beauty; it had only brought her tribulation, the shallow attention of equally shallow men, the hatred of other women, the disbelief in her intelligence by her superior officers. She had been a wild animal clawing at the wire of a cage that seemed as if it wouldn't open; but she would make the walls come down. With one gesture, she would make the space between herself and the Staffords, DCI Wilson, the branch as far, wide, and deep as the ocean that surrounded their tiny little island.

The first cut of the blade was immensely painful. She cried out in agony, tears streaming down her face; and yet it was oddly cathartic. Blood spilled down her face and onto her white ruffled blouse, onto the counter, the tiled floor. She dragged the blade downwards, her face contorted in determined hatred, until the jagged line coursed to her jaw. Subcutaneous tissue threatened to emerge from the wound, and she felt numbly relieved. Her deep, strangled pain had finally stopped suffocating her.

She calmly walked out of the bathroom, casually dropping the blade in the bin outside. Getting into her car, she drove the several blocks to the Fenchurch East station. If she could make them _believe_ her...if she could win some sort of immunity or protection, she could leave. She could go _HOME,_ her punishment would cease, and absolution would finally take over.

Walking through the doors of the station, she passed Sergeant Viv James at his post-he immediately alerted DCI Jim Keats, who'd been pacing CID in Gene's stead since the warehouse investigation began that morning.

Seeing the concerned expression on Keats' face, Louise's bottom lip began to tremble; a woman broken beyond repair, a victim of circumstance. Her resolve finally tore away as her knees began to buckle underneath her. He caught her as she faltered-of course he did-and, putting a protective arm around her, led her into the CID office and settled her into a chair while he fetched a glass of water and helped her clean up her wounds. His deep, comforting eyes were the first she'd seen in many months. As he dabbed at her cheek, cleaning off the blood as best he could before Gene and Alex returned, she just stared helplessly into his eyes as if he'd disappear if she closed her lids.

_Someone...ANYONE. HELP ME. __**PLEASE.**_


End file.
